COSATU claims SA Jews have power to change Israeli policy

TALI FEINBERG

Asked why the protest would be outside the SAJBD offices, which is a Jewish communal organisation and not an Israeli one, COSATU’s deputy international secretary, Zanele Mathebula, responded: “They have everything to do with Israel – they have defended the atrocities and attacked activists. They are the closest thing to Israel in Cape Town.”

She insisted that “most South Africans that are Jewish have dual citizenship, and many have served in the Israeli military. Right now they have a microscopic view of who says what, and they take that person on. They can play a role in changing the situation in Israel – they have that capability.”

She said COSATU was taking on this cause during Israel Apartheid Week because “the struggle of the Palestinians is similar to our struggle, although there it is much worse”.

The Cape Town picket is part of countrywide “Palestinian solidarity rallies” by COSATU on 4 and 5 April. In Bloemfontein, members will rally outside the Bram Fischer Building where the office of the mayor is housed, and in Johannesburg they will be outside the United States Consulate. A possible protest was being planned for Israeli or US consulates in Durban.

Mathebula said the protest in Johannesburg was meant to pressure the US and “American Jews” to stop endorsing Israeli policy. In Bloemfontein, the aim was to encourage moves against Israel among South African municipalities.

“This concerted campaign to make South African Jewry accountable for decisions made in another country is reprehensible,” said Wendy Kahn, SAJBD national director. “COSATU’s long history of anti-Semitism bears testimony to the real intent of their rallies. They are trying to find local targets for their aggressive displays.

“We will closely monitor these rallies and respond to anti-Semitism and threats where and when they occur.”

The Cape SAJBD’s director, Stuart Diamond, said: “COSATU is using this picket as an opportunity to demonstrate against Israel. COSATU is rampant with misinformation and distortion. Many of their leaders and members conflate anti-Zionism, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitism as they don’t know the difference.

“Holding South African Jews accountable for the actions of Israel is anti-Semitic. Their actions normalise anti-Semitism in the mainstream by using and abusing the language of human rights to isolate, stigmatise, and defame Israel and its supporters,” said Diamond.

“COSATU advocates self-determination for Palestinians, yet they deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination in their historic and ancestral homeland, Israel. This is anti-Semitic.”

Paul Bester, COSATU Western Cape organiser and educator, said the SAJBD had been identified as the most probable institution to which to deliver its memorandum. Asked why it was not being delivered to the Israeli Embassy or the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), Bester responded: “The Jewish Board of Deputies represents the Jewish community in Cape Town and South Africa at large.”

He added that, for him, delivering the memorandum to the SAZF would have been a confrontational move. Delivering it to the SAJBD was a way of reaching out to Jews who may want to join the Palestinian cause.

Bester added: “We would like to put on record that no one is blaming anyone here. This is a peaceful picket. We are not violent and do not intend to be so.”

Despite being a large organisation, COSATU has a permit for only 200 people to picket at the Cape Town protest.

Diamond said: “We have engaged with COSATU to highlight the fact that the SAJBD is not a representative of the Israeli government and are not the correct people to be serving this memorandum to.

“I corresponded twice via email, explaining that the SAJBD is an umbrella organisation that serves and protects the civil rights of South African Jews, and the Cape board in particular looks after the interests of the Jewish community living in the Western Cape.

“There is a huge amount of work that still needs to be done in South Africa to lift up the working class and COSATU, as the largest trade union in the country, should take that responsibility seriously. They simply do not understand that by supporting the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) agenda that is anti-Israel, they are also anti-Palestine.

“COSATU has a long and dishonourable record of baiting and maligning the Jewish community and its organisations, so it comes as no surprise that they have chosen to mark Israel Apartheid Week in this manner,” he added.

To give an example, COSATU fully stood by Tony Ehrenreich, then its Western Cape chairman, when he wrote in August 2014 that there should be “eye for an eye” retaliation against the SAJBD and its members every time a woman or child was killed in Gaza, says SAJBD associate director David Saks.

“It continues to do so even after the South African Human Rights Commission ruling finding him guilty of hate speech. At an illegal rally outside the Sydenham Shul in February 2009, COSATU conveyed ‘a message to the Jews in South Africa’ that its 1,9 million members would target businesses owned by Israel supporters. At a rally in Lenasia the previous month, it warned ‘the Jews… these Zionist entities’ that COSATU would become ‘impimpis’ and violently confront Jewish families that had members serving in the Israel Defense Forces,” added Saks.

“COSATU has consistently demonstrated that it considers South African Jewry to be collectively guilty and answerable for what their co-religionists elsewhere in the world is supposedly doing. The fact that they intend picketing a Jewish communal centre also suggests that they do not consider the mainstream Jewish community as being truly part of South Africa, but rather choose to treat it as an alien element whose true loyalties are to another country. Both assumptions constitute classic anti-Semitism, and are all the more repulsive for being the bogus human rights language in which they are framed,” said Saks.

Diamond said the community need not be concerned as the Cape SAJBD was working closely with the city council and the South African Police Service to ensure minimal disruption to the community.